Category: Dark Sanctuary

Vampires.
We can’t get enough of them. We read about them, we write about them, we fill our television screens with images of them. We eat, drink and inhale vampires. Some of us want to be vampires. And some of us just want to be with a vampire. Whether it’s a sparkly version with great hair or a tall blonde Norse god, we’re all just searching for our very own vampire hero.
I have mine. He’s no Norse god and he doesn’t have great hair. In fact, if anything it could do with a damn good cut, but Michael is mine nevertheless. Tall, handsome and irritating as hell Michael; a true born vampire with the power to move quicker than the eye can see and the ability to communicate telepathically. Trust me, if this was fantasy, he’d be in your books and on your screens.
But the difference between you and me is that I can see beyond the fantasy. I know what the stories and films don’t tell you anymore. I know them for what they can be. The stuff of nightmares. The demons of our bad dreams. Myths, monsters and bloody mayhem. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve run from them a million times. And I could keep running, but it would do no good.
Because you see, this time, I’m the monster. I’m the demon. And I have the power to change the world beyond anything even the darkest of nightmares could conjure.
Yeah, I know. Crazy, right?
But as insane as it sounds, that’s what I am; my existence foretold in the pages of a book hidden by a Cardinal and now burnt to cinders in the pit fire of a vampire den. The Church wants me. The Elders desire me. I’m in the middle of a war that has raged for centuries and it’s all because of me.
I’m a prophecy. I’m a myth. I’m the eye of the storm.
My name is Sarah Jacobs and I am the Damphyr.

So….the big news (well big to me anyway) is that yesterday I finally finished Blood Wars, Book Three in the Dark Sanctuary series and posted the final chapters to Wattpad.

There won’t be another book in the series, this is the final one. I should feel elated, right? I mean, I finished writing a novel after all. Months of work. Months of trying to catch some time to finish another chapter. To finish it is an achievement, surely? Yet, I feel…..well, slightly numb.

Is that normal? I never felt like this after the first two were finished but maybe that’s because I always knew there was going to be another book and I didn’t have to say goodbye to my characters just yet. I never intended to write a fourth in the series. Don’t get me wrong, whilst a big part of me could just keep writing Michael and Sarah’s story forever, I never wanted it to become strained and I was worried that is what it would become if I carried on.

But what will I do without Michael, Sarah and the rest of the gang in my life? Just over four years ago, I sat down and started writing the story of a young woman who had locked herself away in a little grey cottage out in the Bedfordshire countryside, hiding from a life-time of horrors that stalked her every move and I never expected to become so immersed in her world. But I guess that is what happens when you’re a writer. These characters might be fictional, but when you spend so much time thinking about how they look, the way they talk, the way in which they move, how they would react in each situation, they are not so much words on a page, but living, breathing people. And it’s incredibly difficult to say goodbye.

But goodbye it is and apart from thanking Sarah and Michael themselves for captivating me enough to want to keep writing their story, I have to say thank you to the real-life people who have helped and supported me along the way. I do feel that this is the part where Louis Walsh pops up and says ‘You’ve been on an incredible journey…blah..blah…blah’ but oh well….here goes anyway *cue Leona Lewis music* 😉

My husband and son – for putting up with my own self-imposed exile in order to write these books. I have a habit of shutting myself off to write, to the exclusion of those around me and I’m not sure I would want to live with a writer, so god knows how you put up with it. I love you.

My family – for not hysterically laughing at me when I finally revealed that I liked to write. And for reading something which maybe isn’t your usual cup of tea just because your daughter/sister happened to write it.

To the ones whose fault it is I continued to write Dark Sanctuary – Hayley Gillam, Karen Cross and Chrissie Thompson; the first ones to read any of my stuff. I blame you all equally 😉

My friends who have dutifully read the series, probably out of obligation, but hey, thanks anyway . You’re all amazing but a special shout out goes to Karen C, Donna, Kelly, Kazbah, Nadia, Dawn-Marie, Kathy, Jacqui and my trusted beta reader Alison (who is way more talented than I could ever hope to be).

Divas Daily Bookblog – thank you to Tina and Jules for being the first to write reviews of Dark Sanctuary and Lost Creatures. You guys are just awesome!

My Wattpad family – I couldn’t possibly name you all but I hope you know who you are. Many of you have been reading the series since I first started posting the first book and your support, comments and votes for an unpublished writer constantly amazes me. I never thought one person would read it, let alone all of you, so thank you – you rock!

Anyway….I think that’s enough sentimental crap for one day.

Time to start writing something new…….;-)

Linz xxx

PS. If you haven’t read Dark Sanctuary, please shimmy, shake or body-pop your way along to Wattpad.

Just a short post to let you all know that I’ve created a Facebook page for my Dark Sanctuary series.

If you are a DS fan, please feel free to come along and give it the big thumbs up, or even if you haven’t read the series but have been following my WordPress posts, please come along also and show your support, I would love to see you all there.

Have a wonderful weekend all, it’s our penultimate bank holiday of the year in the UK so I will be spending it lazing on the sofa, flicking through endless TV channels of nothing and eating my weight in indoor picnic buffet food. It’s a tough life, eh?

I’ve been playing around with the cover of Dark Sanctuary again – I think I’ve changed it about four times now, but hoping I might stick with this one for a while 😉

I’ve tried to resist this contemporary love for book covers with character’s faces on, always preferring my reader to imagine the characters for themselves rather than me force-feeding an image into their head, but I appreciate it seems to work, particularly with YA fiction.

So I’ve relented and have gone with a Sarah theme on all the covers, after all it is HER story so it kind of makes sense.

I’m also hoping it might revive some love for the first book on Wattpad; with the rankings being confusing as ever, Dark Sanctuary had held strong in the top 100 for some time and now doesn’t even rank at all. So if you like the cover and you have a small passion for all things vampire, please do go check it out and vote/comment if you can 🙂

Happy Easter Monday my lovelies. It’s bank holiday here in the UK and we are busy cleaning up the remnants of chocolate from all those Easter eggs we’ve been eating and trying not to think about having to go back to work tomorrow 😉

The good news is that it’s another short working week so can’t complain. The weekends are my main time for writing, so the closer I get to one, the happier I am.

As you know, Blood Wars (Book 3 in The Dark Sanctuary series) is still a work in progress. I’m up to chapter 35 now, unfortunately the end isn’t yet in sight, but it’s definitely progressing in the way I hoped it would and to top it off, the chapters uploaded so far on Wattpad are getting a positive reaction. Also following the reviews on Divas Daily Bookblog this weekend, I’ve had a couple of requests to publish on Amazon, so all in all I’m a happy bunny (of the non-Easter variety).

My friend Kelly, long-time reader of the series, sent me the link for this song by Phosphorescent and said she thought it was a perfect Michael and Sarah song, and I have to say I totally agree. On Wattpad there is a facility to upload multimedia files against each chapter and I’m thinking Song For Zula will be perfect for Chapter 34.

Evening lovelies,
I just earned my first ever review for Dark Sanctuary courtesy of new book blog Divas Daily Bookblog!!!
As an unpublished writer, I feel so very honoured to receive a review particularly as I know the published works that these ladies read and as always, I’m still staggered that anyone wants to read the series, let alone like it enough to want to recommend it.
Thank you so much Jules and Tina from Divas. I shall go to sleep tonight, wearing not only the remnants of too many Easter eggs, but also a HUGE smile :)))

Wow. We were taken on a little ride with this Series.When we read Dark Sanctuary we totally thought from the very beginning that this wasn´t your typical ” Vampire / Human ” story. Nope. We didn´t find any Bella / Edward or any Stefan / Damon / Elaina here. Don´t get us wrong….we loved the all the Twilight-ies and we love us some Vampire Diaries brothers, but we needed a different Vampire / Human tale….AND WE FOUND IT!! Woo – hoo! What a pleasant surprise this book was! We loved how the Author discribed the characters and how she really beautifully discribed the feelings each character was feeling. Dark Sanctuary was an easy read….which is of course for us an A+. We fell in love the the heroine, Sarah, who was difficult but yet had a strong head on her shoulders. We liked how she managed to make her choices…

BE WARNED – IF YOU HAVEN’T READ DARK SANCTUARY, THERE MAY BE SOME SPOILERS IN THE BELOW POST! TURN BACK NOW IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW!

HEY! I SAID TURN BACK!

Happy Friday bloggers, writers, weirdo’s and friends.

I’m back again, 3 times in one week….maybe WordPress hasn’t lost my love and devotion after all 😉

As you know I have uploaded the full length Dark Sanctuary to Wattpad and last week, due to popular demand, I decided to start uploading chapters from the second novel in the series, Lost Creatures.

So far so good, however this morning I woke up to a deluge of comments from my lovely Wattpad collective concerning my main character Sarah.

It seems Sarah isn’t being as well received as I hoped she would. I’m getting various comments about her, but to sum up it appears that some readers find her quite irritating because 1) she won’t put her trust in her vampire companion, Michael and 2) because she seems intent on putting herself and others at risk with her selfish and rather foolish ways.

I can’t say I completely disagree with the reasons why. As the reader, yes, Sarah’s actions can be frustrating. WE can see when Sarah is about to do something reckless. WE can see when she is being unreasonable and/or selfish. WE can see that ultimately she probably should let her guard down with Michael. But that’s because, as the reader, we have the power of foresight. Sarah, unfortunately doesn’t have this, so should we really chastise her for not seeing what we do?

When I read people’s comments (and the number of these comments has been increasing by the day), I automatically feel like I need to jump to Sarah’s defence. Is that a typical reaction with other writers? I don’t know, but I do know that I feel compelled to stick up for her a little bit. Yes, she can do stupid, reckless things. Yes, she can be frustrate the hell out of me. Sarah might not be perfect, but that’s what I like about her because somehow, for me, it makes her more real and it was always my aim when writing Dark Sanctuary to make it slightly more real than other contemporary vampire fiction. She’s human and she makes a ton of mistakes, and why not? Don’t we all?

But what is interesting is people’s reaction to Michael. Okay, so I dare say that the majority of my readers are female, so I get why they like him. There’s nothing like a hot male vamp to get the pulses racing, but Michael really isn’t the hero we think he is.

Michael isn’t an Edward. Yes, he’s hot. But he’s also a killer. He kills more often than not for money. Lonely rich housewives are his meal ticket. Literally. And Sarah was right when she said he didn’t want to save James. Was that jealousy? Yes, probably. Could he have done more to save James and also Sarah’s nan? Undoubtedly yes. But he didn’t. And that’s something we should remember. From the start he always had an ulterior motive in protecting Sarah – to earn favour with her father and gain Marcus’ help. The resulting love affair is just incidental and a nice twist to the tale.

But nobody seems to see all this. He’s Michael after all. And as a result, Sarah seems forever destined to be slated for not falling at his feet and for not putting her trust in him one hundred percent. Is it so difficult to accept that she would still be wary of Michael when the only vampires she had ever met were nothing but monsters?

Okay, I’m not defending everything she does. But she has some amazing qualities. She’s feisty. She’s strong. She’s independent. She’s funny. She’s tenacious. And yes, she’s stubborn. She’s selfish. She’s reckless. But I wouldn’t have her any other way. I like her flaws. She wouldn’t be Sarah if she wasn’t flawed in some way.

I don’t know whether the Wattpad collective’s opinion of Sarah will change. I have sneaky feeling she will redeem herself when she and Michael finally bump nasties. But whatever happens between her and Michael, she will still always be Sarah. Flawed. Imperfect. Real. But that’s fine with me because I don’t want a perfect heroine.